Attract more customers online

Whether you have had a website for some time or you are just starting out, unless you put tactics in place to help people find your website, they won’t. Secondly, once they have found you, there’s a host of techniques you can use which will encourage people to inquire with you.

But, before we reveal how to turn your online activities into a lead generation tool, let’s start with your website.

Your website

The design, layout and content of your website is crucial. It’s well worth getting this right, before you invest any money directing people there.

You may have had your website designed recently and feel that you would rather see some return before you spend more, but trust us, you have to get it right. Plus, a lot of what we’ll recommend can be done with just an investment of time and won’t cost you a bean. Sounds good, right?

If customers don’t like what they see on your site, if the page loads too slow, has too much text, too few images or provides no customer projects or reviews – they will leave, never to return.

When people land on your website, it takes them 0.05 seconds to make a judgement about your site. That’s 1/10th of a second!

In a busy, attention demanding space they need to recognise what you do instantaneously, or they won’t stick around.

Websites are never finished, its not enough to make a website live and hope for the best.

Technology and trends in website design are always changing, and with customer expectations constantly on the up, it’s good to keep your site up to date. Adding new content is also really helpful for SEO.

Once you’re satisfied your website is up to scratch, if time to put in place a few strategies to reach and attract your potential customers.

1. SEO

If there is one digital marketing technique that’s always on-trend, it’s SEO, yes it’s evolving, and the lines have blurred between SEO, Social and content, but it’s as important today as it ever was.

If your website was developed without some consideration of your audience and relevant keywords and no time allocated to optimising the site in line with SEO best practice, you will never reach that Google page one top spot, or even page one.

To put it simply, optimised content, fast page loading, a sitemap and inbound links are your SEO starter pack – talk to us if you’d like to find out more.

2. Google Adwords (pay per click)

The best thing about Google Adwords, is that you only pay when people click onto your website which makes it one of the best lead generation tools around.

The downside of Google Adwords is that it’s not that easy for those unfamiliar with Google Adwords to manage, that’s if you want it done in a way that uses your budget effectively, targeting exactly the right search phrases and optimising your bid strategy. Of course, you can run your own campaign, but it’s advisable to read up on it and familiarise yourself with the common mistakes and how to avoid them.

At Calico, we manage Google Ad campaigns for some of our clients and are achieving impressive results with as little as £250 Google ad budget.

3. Social

Posting on social media is free. Of course, you can choose to advertise on any of the social platforms, but we advise to get to grips with social media first, by establishing a regular routine of posting content and engaging with your audience.

As with most things, you get out what you put in, so excellent quality content in, great results out! Posts with images usually get 50% more engagement that others.

Choose the right channels, don’t just be on every social channel because you think you must or because everyone else. If you’ve got an ecommerce site, always focus on Facebook and Pinterest, because those drive the most traffic to online stores (FB: 55%; Pinterest: 25%).

4. Email

Email is an amazing tool for driving traffic to your website. If you start to build an opted-in email list of potential customers from the start, you have the additional opportunity to contact them when you have something new to offer.

You can use email marketing for company news, blog updates, product promotions, offers and events. All of which will help pull customers back to your site and away from your competition.

We can set you up with a nicely designed email template that compliments your branding, and if you need any additional help, we can even help you plan, write and schedule your emails for optimum results.

5. Last, but by no means last, print

The days when you went away for a week and couldn’t get through the door for ‘junk’ mail when you returned are, luckily, gone, leaving room for those that are doing direct mailing well using precise targeting and personalisation, to make an impact.

Print is now being used as a point of difference in marketing to gain a competitive edge, its very much a means of cutting through the digital noise.

Print is tangible, tactile and has a longer shelf life than any digital media could hope to achieve. Interestingly, millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) are the largest group that prefer print to digital.

Final Thoughts

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this article, so I think it’s only fair I point out that, before you dive into any of these strategies, you’ll need to do a bit more reading and research on each of these topics in order to understand these tactics in depth. What I hope to have given you is a clear roadmap of exactly what you need to do to get more visitors to your site. Of course, you can seek the help and guidance from an agency, just like ours, to support your business through its journey.